Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Linux from Scratch

linuxfromscratch.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 164 posts

Re: Linux from Scratch

#131

Post by hollerith »

therein wrote: post #113
imiric wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nix purists would say that you should use flakes to declare all the dependencies for each project, and reference all Python dependencies as Nix packages there. Nix effectively tries to replace every package manager in existence, so all Python, Ruby, Emacs, etc. dependency trees are duplicated in Nix. I think this is insane. Not only will many packages be missing from Nix, you will also have to wait for the upstream c…

Ironically, that's when you create an Arch container in LXC.

I would try installing pacman in the same filesystem NixOS is in.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#132

Post by itomato »

jakogut wrote: post #105

Another project to check out if you enjoy LFS is buildroot. Buildroot uses Kconfig (and associated tools like menuconfig, config, etc.) same as the kernel, to generate a configuration for building an embedded Linux system. This configuration can be committed and patched in the repo for your project. Adding an application or library automatically pulls in dependencies. Configs can be merged with fragments that add spe…

It’s cool but adding more than a package or two in the buildroot way is where I would get into the weeds.

I’m sometimes surprised a fork with better approach to package management doesn’t exist yet.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#133

Post by keitmo »

I went through the LFS process back in 2003 or 2004. I didn't have a Linux system handy, so I built it with Fedora 3 running under VMWare on a Windows XP laptop. It was not speedy.

I tried to automate the process as much as possible. There's a separate Automated Linux From Scratch project, but I choose to roll my own. This was my first experience with Bash scripts -- I developed skills (and bad habits) that I continue to use this day.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#134

Post by pushupentry1219 »

bee_rider wrote: post #37
pushupentry1219 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in highschool I had a bunch of free time outside of school days. I used a YouTube guide to install Arch. I failed many many times. But in doing so I almost kind of learnt what each command was doing. I had the same experience when I installed Gentoo. In both cases at first I was copy/pasting commands, but through failure I ended up understanding a lot of what the commands did. And what someone else said be…

I wonder if the wiki would have been an easier start, than YouTube. YouTube is nice for learning things with a visual component, but installing Linux is all text, all the time. The ability to easily hop around and re-read sections on the wiki where necessary (I mean, jumping around is possible on YouTube of course, but it is really easy on the wiki) seem like it would be a big help.

Arch wiki would've almost definitely been a way better start!

But I had _just_ ventured into this space. And at the time the wiki format wasn't something I'd ever seen outside of Wikipedia so i never put 2-2 together to figure out the wiki could be used as an install guide. Plus the walls of text were kind of intimidating?

So I jumped to what i knew; YouTube tutorials.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#135

Post by pushupentry1219 »

pino82 wrote: post #61
bee_rider wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the wiki would have been an easier start, than YouTube. YouTube is nice for learning things with a visual component, but installing Linux is all text, all the time. The ability to easily hop around and re-read sections on the wiki where necessary (I mean, jumping around is possible on YouTube of course, but it is really easy on the wiki) seem like it would be a big help.

Reading and actually understanding non-trivial text is hard if you are part of a generation that was never challenged to actually learn it. For those people, YouTube (and a few similar shops) are the default way to consume any content. That's what they do all the time. Sure, they somehow know those legacy emojis that you call the latin alphabet. It will just not lead to a deep understanding of text. Another aspect is…

> Reading and actually understanding non-trivial text is hard if you are part of a generation that was never challenged to actually learn it.

I don't think this is fair to say. Could be said for the generation after me. Maybe not. I think this kind of sweeping generalisation is not fair on any generation though. There are motivated and lazy people in all generations, as there are people with good/bad attention spans.

And what you've said about YouTube might be true, but it wasn't for me. I did not go to YouTube for the community aspect, but only because like I said before I didn't even know that the Arch wiki was an install guide as well.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#136

Post by joveian »

Scuds wrote: post #110

I wonder what an equivalent "BSD from scratch" is like? Linux was assembled from a collection of parts while BSD is (reputably) a lot more 'designed from the ground up' Even a modern system like Fuchsia - what's that like to build from the ground up? Or is it "You fool! Building your own kitbashed Gundam of an OS is the point."

I'm not sure about the others but the full NetBSD base system can be cross compiled from Linux (and maybe some other unixy systems) using the included build script (I'm not sure what the current state of cross compiling pkgsrc is, likely not as good). You could add or remove things from the base system to learn more about how the build system works or create different install sets or something along those lines, although just looking at what the build system does might be as helpful.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#137

Post by lanstin »

donio wrote: post #120
sieste wrote: post #3

I really like the idea, really tried following the process several times. But each time it just turned into a copy-incomprehensible-commands-into-the-terminal exercise at some point, and I lost motivation. Did anyone experience the same?

For most people the whole reason to do the exercise is to understand what is involved in a bootstrap process. When you don't understand something you stop and figure out what is going on. There is not much point in blindly running commands that you don't understand.

Except of course getting the OS installed and running.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#138

Post by [deleted] »

sieste wrote: post #3

I really like the idea, really tried following the process several times. But each time it just turned into a copy-incomprehensible-commands-into-the-terminal exercise at some point, and I lost motivation. Did anyone experience the same?

[deleted]

Re: Linux from Scratch

#139

Post by mekster »

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #72

Building using LFS has been on my list of "I really should probably do that just to learn" for about 20 years now. I'll get around to it! This year I'm finally learning Lisp (and really enjoying it).

If you'd done that 20 years ago, we'd been on the same page :)

Though back then, I learnt well from Gentoo by setting the system up from stage 1, which was a good knowledge to keep when trying to fix things such as handling partitions in single user mode or modprobe'ing to detect hardware and such.

If you can't do anything beyond relying on GUI, you could get stuck real fast.

Re: Linux from Scratch

#140

Post by dontdieych »

dvno42 wrote: post #63

Between LFS and Stage 1 and 2 Gentoo installs back in the early 2000s during High School, this gave me a big leg up in my journey of learning about computers and Linux. I can't thank those project maintainers enough for helping me get my footing at such a young age and peaking my interest in computing. I ended up printing out the LFS book in segments on one of the printers in High School and brought it home in pieces…

Hey, I'm looking at mirror. :D

> Between LFS and Stage 1 and 2 Gentoo installs back in the early 2000s

> I ended up printing out the LFS book in segments on one of the printers

LFS and Gentoo is what made me understand Linux system.

Post reply on HN